Weeks later Duke and some of Hunters close friends were in the kitchen watching Monday Night Football, where there was the usual drinking and gambling. At halftime Duke recounted the story of Semmes’s mother, the lunch, and the gift. The consensus of opinion was that a Baretta would have been a better choice. A lighter weapon, better for an elderly woman. Smaller, more easily concealed in a clutch or a shawl, easier to smuggle on an airplane. Hunter waxed poetic about Mrs. Luckett’s genteel grace, indicating that she reminded him of his own mother, whose birthday was that very day. The assembled lads asked what Hunter had given his mother for the occasion.
“Houston and four” was his reply.
New Orleans. Hunter was in town as part of a book tour. Coincidentally, Duke had also scheduled a trip to the Crescent City, for the jazz festival. They decided to hook up. Hunter had reserved several suites on the upper floors of the Pontchartrain Hotel. In the spirit of keeping order in the food chain, the attorney general of Louisiana was occupying a suite two floors below Hunter. Doc was the first of his party to arrive, so he was uncharacteristically alone, no supervision. He proceeded to run a bath and stretched out for a bit to begin the unwinding process.
It seemed as if the phone had been ringing for quite a while, but it was the pounding on the door that really brought him back to consciousness. He swung his feet off the bed, and when they hit the floor the water immediately soaked his socks. “What the…?” The carpet was soaked. Hunter slogged to the door; the faces on the other side were concerned, agitated. “Are you all right?” they asked. “Of course I am, except the damn carpet is soaking, can you help?” At that point he became aware of the sound of running water coming from the bathroom. He asked, “Is there a leak? Has there been a mishap?” The hotel authorities excused themselves, passed him, and headed into the bathroom. Hunter followed. The tile floor was deep underwater. They turned the water off. “You’ll have to move into a suite upstairs; the one below you is also soaked. The one below that, too, the one the attorney general was occupying.” Hunter was annoyed by the thoughtlessness of this inconvenience, but decided not to complain. Give the fools a break.
When the rest of Hunter’s entourage arrived, they found that they weren’t staying in as close proximity as they had hoped, but Hunter assured them that there was a reasonable explanation and said no more. Duke called that evening. He asked to speak to Mr. Ackerman, and the hotel operator put him through to Hunter’s room.
Duke was staying at a friend’s apartment on Bourbon Street. They agreed that he would attend the following day’s book signing and then the two would do something fun afterward.
When the signing wound down to stragglers and Hunter’s party, Doc announced that he’d just as soon go off with Duke, so everyone else could do what they wanted with their evening. Hunter and Duke found themselves an excellent restaurant in the French Quarter. As was his usual practice, Hunter ordered a glass of ice water, a beer, a Bloody Mary, and a large Chivas on the rocks. In the spirit of excess, Duke ordered a beer. They enjoyed a good wine with dinner, confining themselves to one entrée each. As the busboy was clearing, Hunter asked about dessert specials.
“Crème brûlée,” the waiter said.
“Hmm,” Hunter said. “I’ll have some.” The waiter turned to leave. Hunter said, “Wait, keep going.”
The waiter turned back to the table. “We also have mud pie.”
“I’ll try that,” Hunter said and indicated that the waiter should proceed.
“Cheesecake.”
“Sure, that sounds good.”
“Pecan tort.”
“Great.”
“Our house special tonight is chocolate mousse.”
“Nope, sounds a little too rich.”
After dinner the two headed out into the Quarter. They had heard that there was an interesting joint on Royale. The boys made their way to “The Wild Side,” a subterranean club with dark stairs leading down to the door.
Smoke and gloom greeted them as they entered. Even coming in from the night, their eyes had to adjust to the darkness. They identified the bar and groped off in that direction. Settling into the drinks, Hunter began to talk. As Duke’s senses adjusted to the atmosphere, he began to get an odd vibe. Sure, the bartender is flagrantly gay. So? This was the city of anything goes. There was something else, though. Sounds emanating from the darkness. While Doc was happily chatting away, Duke was beginning to see into the shadows. He picked out faces, lots and lots of makeup. The darker the shadow, the stranger, more feral the sounds. Hunter was laughing, amused by his own banter. Duke was peering. The world of the club was slowly revealing itself to him. He grabbed Hunter’s wrist. “Hunter, look around.” Hunter stopped talking and swiveled his head, trying to zone in on whatever Duke wanted him to see. “See?” Duke lowered his voice to a whisper. “Hunter, everyone in here is gay or a transvestite or a transsexual, or all of it. There are people actually having sex in the corners.” Hunter continued to look around. He nodded. “I’m happy.”
The next night Hunter showed up at the Bourbon Street apartment where Duke was staying with three transvestites in tow. Word is, nothing happened.
Later, back in the kitchen at the farm, when Duke would try to recount the incident, he found Hunter a little uncooperative in helping with the details. Duke got the feeling that he shouldn’t bring it up again, ever.
Hunter Takes an Artist to a Filthy Strip Joint
The artist Richard “Dick” Carter first met Hunter Thompson at a Christmas party around 1980. The party was at the home of fellow artist Missie Thorne. Predictably, the guests were painters, sculptors, and assorted artsy types. Hunter always felt a kinship with artists, and enjoyed their company. He wasn’t quite as fond of “artsy” types.
At Missie’s party, Hunter had sought refuge in a back room with a TV. He was watching a college basketball game when Carter wandered in. They started talking sports and hit it off, and began to make small proposition bets. This was always an excellent way to get to know Hunter—partly because of forging a bond in the common interest in sports, and partly because it was a way to start getting used to the fleecing, or attempted fleecing, as early on as possible.
Carter learned fast.
Carter and Hunter’s next meeting was on the periphery of a heavyweight championship bout. It was the dark ages of techno television, and singer Jimmy Buffett was the man who had a satellite dish to receive the closed-circuit telecast. Everyone was going over to Buffet’s to watch the fight. Hunter, a huge boxing enthusiast, was looking forward to the evening; Dick chose not to attend. It was one of those fights that was over far too quickly, and within minutes there was nothing left to do but party. As a rule, Hunter had no real problem with a good party, but a much-anticipated sporting event ending in disappointment left him a bit off his feed. He had to move on, so he called Carter.
Hunter had decided to interpret Dick’s failure to attend the fight party as an act of great wisdom. He wanted to hook up with his new buddy who had had sense enough to stay home. In fact, Carter’s real reasons for not going to the party were completely pedestrian: he didn’t know Buffet that well, and he preferred to stay in his studio and work that evening. It didn’t turn out that way.
Hunter always traveled with whatever he figured it would take to get him through the night. On this occasion it got them both through the night. How much progress—or, to be more correct, how little progress—the artist made on his painting was not the issue. It was an evening when schemes were schemed, plots were hatched. That’s what counted.
A rich fool who lived nearby had installed a life-size white plastic statue of a rearing stallion in a pasture right next to the road. This beautiful manicured and fenced-in meadow would have been paradise to a horse with a pulse. No one knows how the synthetic steed felt about it. Some of the Homo sapiens in the neighborhood, however, had very clear opinions on the matter. People’s aesthetics were bruised by the statue. “General” Thompson had a strategy. At some p
oint during the long aftermath of the disappointing boxing match, a guerilla action was proposed.
A team was assembled—an elite group of mature, intelligent adults who all continued to harbor preadolescent cravings to commit acts of petty vandalism. Carter provided the tools and raw materials. On the evening of the raid, the crew traveled to Owl Farm to collect General Thompson. Hunter was nowhere to be found. We’ll never know where he really was that evening. Some are sure the raid simply slipped his mind. Others suggest that, during the time between conception and execution, he had been studying obscure texts on military strategy, highlighting passages involving the vast difference between the officer corps and the cannon fodder—and pondering his desire to remain part of the first group. That night the cannon fodder had no choice but to go ahead without their leader. Wheels were turning. The raid was unstoppable.
The sun rose bright and clear the next morning on a proud, rearing zebra. The crime made the front page of the Aspen Times. General Hunter called the cannon fodder and congratulated the team on a “righteous mission,” with extra points for creativity.
In truth, Hunter was often a no-show. He obeyed only his own laws in life, but the laws of physics are immutable. The inertia of rest was often the most compelling force in his day. Sometimes it could prove impossible to get out of the kitchen.
DICK AND DOC MOVE WEST
By the mid-eighties, Carter was living in the Bay Area and Hunter was writing for the San Francisco Examiner. Doc was writing a weekly column and staying in Sausalito; Dick was painting in a garage studio near Redwood City. There would be late-night phone calls while they were both working. Hunter was always nocturnal; Dick could be when he was engrossed in his work.
During that period, Playboy magazine assigned Hunter to do a story on porn. As part of this agonizing duty, he was given the job of night manager of the O’Farrell Theater, a one-of-a-kind porn palace run by the Mitchell brothers.
The Mitchell brothers were pioneers in their field. They had discovered legend Marilyn Chambers and had produced such film classics as Behind the Green Door and Ms. Chambers’s Insatiable series. The boys thought the world of Hunter. They had given him a beautiful nickel-plated, high-tech pellet gun. The gun had inscribed on it BECAUSE THIS IS THE WORK WE DO, a quote from The Godfather: Part II.
Hunter and Carter took that weapon out into Hunter’s backyard one day. The guys were plinking. Their target was a small metal lapel pin depicting San Francisco mayor Dianne Feinstein with eight breasts. Feinstein had some issues with the O’Farrell, and the Mitchell boys had the button made in response to her concerns. Hunter had attached the button to the end of a fishing line and dangled the pole over the edge of the deck. With the button swinging in the breeze, Hunter and Carter proceeded to take turns shooting. Suddenly there was screaming from below. Those shots had to land somewhere.
Buy a box of .22-caliber bullets and the warning on the package reads, “Caution: Range 1 Mile.” The range of a pellet gun is far less. Just about to the guy’s house down the hill. He seemed upset. Hunter immediately identified the situation as a simple misunderstanding between the target shooters, who were guilty of a minor oversight, and a foolish homeowner who had clearly put his house in a bad spot. Never wishing to offend, Hunter denied everything and told the unhappy neighbor to “fuck off.”
At this point they quickly decamped for the O’Farrell. Hunter was going to show Dick around. They took two cars, Thompson in his Wagoneer and Carter in his old MGB. They got down to the O’Farrell, and Hunter introduced Carter all around. The joint was pretty much jumping by that hour, with customers and beautiful girls all over the place. It was a sophisticated operation. Many different rooms with all kinds of different porn shows going on more or less simultaneously. Hunter told one of the guys who worked there to make sure Carter got to see everything. So he did. Dick was constantly hit on by these amazing chicks—because that’s how these clubs are but also because Hunter had put out the word that Carter was with him. Hunter was going to get a real kick out of this. Carter’s most vivid memory was a room with red shag carpeting all around and up over the benches that ran around the walls, and all mirrors above that, and these two beauties going at each other with four of those flashlights with the long extensions, the ones that they use to guide 747s into the gate at the airport. Those flashlights illuminated every orifice and part imaginable.
Beautiful women kept approaching Carter. He knew what they wanted. They hoped they knew what he wanted—and could provide it. It was business. Dick kept declining kind offer after kind offer. “No, thanks. I’m just here with Hunter doing research,” he said. The women were relentless. Dick eventually made his way back up to the office to see what Hunter was up to. They had some drinks, snorted some coke, smoked some weed, and played pool. All while appreciating a constant parade of hot, mostly naked, women.
As Robert Frost once wrote, “The woods are lovely dark and deep, / but I have miles to go before I sleep.”
Hours later, Hunter handed Carter a vial of cocaine. Carter couldn’t seem to locate an implement with which to snort the stuff. Hunter handed him the keys to his Wagoneer as a useful tool. They continued chatting and shooting pool. It was late; the place was closing up. Hunter and one of the guys had to lock the doors and shut down. Dick left first, waving as he passed them. They were closing the metal shutters on the front of the building.
Carter was home in bed, battling his way toward sleep, when the phone rang. It was Hunter. “Carter, you have my car keys, I couldn’t get into the car. Had to go back into the theater, had no ride.” Holy shit! thought Dick. The keys were indeed in his pocket, where he had put them after doing the coke. Carter apologized with huge sincerity, and offered to head back to the theater with the keys. “NO. NO, don’t apologize. You’re going into the Drug Hall of Fame! These things happen when you’re doing important work. Call me tomorrow.” Hunter hung up.
Carter felt like an asshole, but, wow, he was going into the Drug Hall of Fame. The kids would be so proud.
DICKIE GETS HIS GUN
Hunter liked guns; Carter was not a big gun enthusiast. Dick had little affection for Charlton Heston–loving NRA types. He did enjoy target shooting, though. The rest of us shoot at targets so we can get better when it comes time to shoot at things that annoy us. For Dick, shooting at targets was an end unto itself. A curious notion.
Hunter would take Dick out into the backyard of Owl Farm and they would assassinate the old hot water heater, the beer keg, all the debris that Hunter used as targets. Sometimes they’d shoot at little exploding targets—three-inch-square boxes, about half an inch thick, with a small charge in them. Hunter liked a good conflagration. He was proud of being an excellent marksman, so hitting the target was a good thing, but if it could end up looking like Dresden—or Hell—it was that much better. He’d tape the exploding targets to gallon containers of gasoline. One doesn’t need to paint a picture.
One’s first experience with the exploding target/gallon of gas continuum is always memorable. Carter’s was no exception.
One sunny summer afternoon, a bunch of people were at Owl Farm. It was kind of unusual because there was no particular occasion for their presence there, just a pleasant afternoon. Friends with their children, cronies, drinking buddies. It seemed a perfect time to haul out the weaponry, do some shooting—a “kids having fun” sort of day. So, out came the toys. Everyone was either on the deck or gathered around the picnic table that was about fifteen feet from the deck or somewhere in between. The table was littered with firearms and ammo, plastic gallon jugs, and the little targets. Doc had these big gas tanks, like ranches have. He sent someone off to fill the gallon jugs. The shooting had already begun
Those who shot were blasting away with twelve-gauges, .357 magnums, .44 magnums, AK-47s, and whatever else. Not all at once, of course. Responsibly taking turns. The children watched as if it were a fireworks show. When the jugs of gas showed up, the firing was halted. Hunter took one of the
jugs, hiked into the field, and placed it on a log that was upended out there, about fifty feet from the table. The little targets had adhesive backing, and he attached one to the jug.
When he got back to the table, he asked Carter to go inside and grab a fire extinguisher from next to the fireplace. When Carter returned, Hunter said, “Okay, if I catch fire, you put me out.” Carter’s jaw dropped noticeably, and he backed up about ten paces. “No, no. Stand right here next to me,” Hunter said. Carter did some quick calculations in his head and concluded that if he stood right next to Hunter, and Hunter were engulfed in flame, then Carter, too, would be engulfed in flame. Carter explained his theory to Doc and also admonished the mothers who were standing around to take their children someplace pretty far away. Hunter muttered something no one quite got, but the tone was pure disgust. Carter backed up a little farther.
What followed was a textbook example of “Responsible Shooting and Blowing Things Up.” Hunter took careful aim, fired, hit the target. There was a huge fireball. It was like war. He spent the next few minutes directing Carter in extinguishing various patches of lawn that had caught fire. Luckily, no people had. Some of the mothers started herding their children toward their cars.
Hunter had a huge inventory of weapons, from the pedestrian to the exotic—mostly the exotic. Carter was particularly fond of a Browning nine-millimeter. It held twelve rounds in the clip, with one more in the chamber. A serviceable weapon. The exotic stuff would be an acquired taste.
Doc wanted a Carter painting, so Dick proposed a trade, and Hunter bit immediately. Art for weaponry. Doc coughed up the gun right then and there, but Dick asked him if he’d hang on to it. Carter had two young children at home, not to mention an extremely level-headed wife, Claudette, who would consider the notion of a handgun in the house worthy of the Bad Idea Hall of Fame. Dick would use the gun only when he was at Hunter’s. Done deal.
The Kitchen Readings Page 9